Digital News Dynamics

Digital platforms shape expectations, performance and dynamics of public discourse, also and especially with regard to the journalistic mediation of news topics. The research group investigates how the distribution and use of news develops under the conditions of digital platform architectures and which factors can explain the successful transmission of news today. For example, why do some users select information from journalistic intermediaries while others rely on other network actors (e.g., influencers, political actors, companies)? How does this relate to their level of knowledge and engagement?

Central to this is the role constellation between audience, source and journalism and their relationship to each other. For this purpose, three central aspects of communication on platforms are examined: changed understanding of intermediation services (dt.: Vermittlungsleistungen), changed intermediation relationships (dt.: Vermittlungsbeziehungen) and changed intermediation dynamics (dt.: Vermittlungsdynamiken).